When Words Take Lives

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When Words Take Lives View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by UC Research Repository 1 When Words Take Lives: The Role of Language in the Dehumanization and Devastation of Jews in the Holocaust A Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in English in the University of Canterbury by Sarah Anne Fisk University of Canterbury 2009 2 Table of Contents Abstract 3 Introduction 5 Chapter One: The Hierarchy of Race: Historical Definitions of the Human 10 Chapter Two: Theory’s Explosive Culmination: Mein Kampf and Nazism 38 Chapter Three: When Representation becomes Reality: Dehumanizing Principles put into Action 59 Chapter Four: Life on the Lowest Level: The Stories of the Subhuman and Non-human Animals 82 Conclusion 109 Works Cited 117 3 Abstract This thesis will examine the ways in which anti-Semitic and more generalized racial theories were powerfully and effectively mobilized under Hitler and his Nazi regime. In the establishment of Nazi ideology and the practice of its principles, Hitler drew upon an old, extensive and specific genre of animalizing language. Hitler’s regime skillfully employed contemporary and diverse modes of discourse to dehumanize and devastate the Jewish people. By juxtaposing traditional anti-Semitic beliefs with ideals of Aryan superiority, the Nazis were able to expand and strengthen pre-existing anti- Semitism whilst reaffirming Germany as the ultimate example of evolutionary progression. Integral to Hitler’s success was the use of animal imagery and its respective connotations, associations and evocations. Throughout Hitler’s regime, the term “animal” remained without an exact or precise definition; the ambiguous definition of “animal” allowed for multiple applications – both destructive and constructive. When used in reference to the Jews, the term “animal” was loaded with a barrage of degrading references, images and emotions. The Jews were described as dirty, disease-ridden rats: weak, despoiling animals that needed to be exterminated and bloodsucking parasites that presented an imminent threat to German bloodlines, culture, morality and economy. These images all stirred feelings of disgust, abhorrence and fear especially when linked to ideas of unpredictable and overwhelming plagues and swarms. The concept of human “animals” was also applied to the Germans but with completely different consequences. The German “animal” was a natural predator, a super wolf, a noble and loyal dog. This wolf/dog was upheld for its prowess, its commitment to the pack and its virile bloodline. This image of animalism was not a degradation or an admission of German inferiority; rather, it was a declaration of evolutionary achievement and innate superiority. The flexibility of the term “animal” was always loaded with emotive connotations and representations whilst remaining fluid in its applicability – only to be temporarily fixed as and when it suited Nazi ends. Hitler utilized the 4 ascribed authority of scientific and pseudo-scientific theories to reinforce a sense of legitimacy and add a compelling rationality to Nazi ideology. Modern media were efficiently employed to spread Nazi beliefs: emotive speeches and new legislative measures were broadcast on the radio; propaganda was printed and circulated whilst cinematography captured the imaginations of many Germans and represented the Jews’ “animal” nature. With a wealth of resources available to his purposes, Hitler was able to form and strengthen an ideology that had every appearance of being credible, necessary, righteous and legitimate. Innovative concepts and practices of industrialism were important in the mobilization of Hitler’s racial campaign; the employment of new technologies appealed to a sense of progress and national self-improvement as well as providing effective and detached methods of removing the Jewish presence from Germany. When placed within multiple modes of discourse, images of animalism became increasingly pervasive and the dehumanization of the Jews was well underway. 5 Introduction Because human life has often been considered to possess more value than the members of the animal kingdom, the redefinition or blurring of distinctions between humans and animals often contributes to the dehumanizing and degrading of human beings. Shifting classifications, definitions and interpretations of what is human and what is animal allow new boundaries to be drawn between peoples, races and species. Recent works on human/animal studies by authors such as Boria Sax, Jonathan Burt, Marjorie Spiegel and Charles Patterson will contribute to this thesis’ exploration of the human/animal divide in relation to the Nazi dehumanization of the Jewish people. In Regarding Animals, Arnold Arluke and Clinton R. Sanders claim that the constant re-drawing and blurring of the human/animal boundary was essential to the paradoxical Nazi ideology (133). Under Hitler, the Nazis redefined what it is to be human and these new definitions excluded the Jewish people who were reclassified as inferior animals. In his study on group power dynamics, Elias Canetti expands upon the importance of redefined human/animal boundaries, stating that the despot who reduces men to animals and only manages to rule them by regarding them as belonging to a lower species reduces to vermin all who do not qualify even to be ruled and ends by destroying them by the millions (363). The reality of Canetti’s statement can be seen in Hitler’s Germany; Sax describes how “the Nazis herded human beings, branded them with numbers, neutered them, and slaughtered them industrially, as people had traditionally done with animals” (22). Reclassified as non-humans, the Jews were excluded from the ranks of humanity and their lives deemed both undesirable and expendable. Charles Patterson confirms this idea in Eternal Treblinka as he examines correlations between the Holocaust and the industrialization of animal slaughterhouses. He proposes that the degradation of “lower” 6 human races to animal status encourages and appears to justify their subjugation and subsequent elimination (27). Patterson concludes that the lower and more degraded the victim is in the eyes of the perpetrator, the easier it is to take the victim’s life (47-8). Jonathan Burt also discusses the effects of industrialization upon human/animal relationships in his essay, “Conflicts around Slaughter in Modernity” in Killing Animals. Burt suggests that the mechanics of industrial processing allow for the disregarding of individual creatures and the desensitization of the perpetrators, as “one cannot see the animals for the industry” (122). This thesis will examine the process of cultural change that enabled such extensive dehumanization. The main focus will be the role of language in the devaluation and dismissal of fellow human beings - the relationship between language and the dehumanizing process that appears to justify atrocity against fellow humans. By drawing on the human/animal distinction and the accompanying connotations of superiority and inferiority, Hitler maintained and widened the distance between Jews and non-Jews; the Nazis’ manipulation of language transformed the Jewish people into a poisonous horde of vermin in desperate need of extermination. Hitler's Mein Kampf seems radical in its extremism, yet these racial theories did not appear from within a historical void; Hitler was influenced by a strong tradition of literature centered on issues of racial purity. This thesis will explore a selection of literature that significantly influenced Hitler's Mein Kampf and increased Germany's receptivity to destructive racial ideology. It will also consider the memoirs of Nazi Germans and Jewish survivors in order to more fully examine the applied reality of the dehumanizing racial theories; the dehumanizing language and attitudes were so effective that even the prisoners began to regard themselves as less than human (Arluke and Sanders, 152). A vocabulary of detachment, rationalization and euphemism hastened the Nazi invasion of German hearts, minds and consciences. Different animal metaphors were superimposed upon the Jews and further enabled the Nazis to gather and process human lives with 7 incredible efficiency and proficiency. Jews became perceived as cattle to be processed, parasites to be eradicated and rats to be exterminated. The development of technological concepts and practices provided an ideal environment for Nazi metaphors of Jewish animals to be realized. Old racial traditions, literary legacies, animal imagery and metaphors and contemporary industrialization were skillfully employed to redefine the boundaries of humanity at the devastating exclusion of the Jewish people. The first chapter of this thesis is entitled “The Hierarchy of Race: Historical Definitions of the Human”, and it begins with an examination of some of the racial theory that Hitler read, absorbed and developed. From Comte Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, Charles Darwin, Ernst Haeckel, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Madison Grant and Henry Ford, Hitler gleaned various principles and concepts of a humanity that he would claim was shaped by and revealed its perfection in the Germanic Aryans. Every other race was ranked below these Aryans and placed hierarchically in order of intelligence, beauty and evolutionary development. In contrast with the superiority of the Germanic Aryans, the Jews were ranked as the lowest of humanity: so low and corruptive that many of the authors Hitler read
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